You'd think that writing a book day and night on a BlackBerry smartphone would eventually render your thumbs useless, but a woman from London has done just that, and now her novel is selling on Amazon.

If you were going to write a book, the chances are you’d sit yourself in front of a full-size keyboard connected to a full-size computer screen before you embarked on your full-size project. Not so Brit Georgina Campbell.

She bashed out a 55,600-word book on, of all things, her BlackBerry smartphone. The 41-year-old Londoner said the idea to put thumb to keyboard came about after watching the 2011 sci-fi movie Attack the Block. While daughter Lorra loved it, Georgina thought it was abysmal and so bet Lorra she could write something better. It was then she grabbed her writing tool of choice and started work on her novel.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Georgina said it took four months to complete the gritty tale of a group of girls growing up in inner-city London, writing it entirely on the phone’s native MemoPad app.

“When I started writing the book I would normally do it after a 12-hour shift at work and it would be a breeze – I loved it and wrote through the night,” she told the Mail. “It was almost like a holiday – I’d just sit down and start typing the book out on my BlackBerry using my two thumbs.”

Georgina said the phone was the ideal writing tool simply because it was with her all the time. “I was writing on the train, on breaks at work, waiting for a bus, having a bath, when I was walking around – anywhere. It completely took over my life – all I thought about morning to night was writing the book.” Four months after tapping out the first word, The Kickdown Girls made it  to Amazon.

Possibly the most remarkable part of the story, however, is that despite her round-the-clock commitment, her thumbs are still fully operational instead of finishing up as mere worn-down stumps; she didn’t even develop BlackBerry thumb, the repetitive strain injury linked to excessive use of the physical keyboard so beloved by BlackBerry users.

Whether Georgina’s work is better than the script of Attack the Block is something for readers to decide, though at the time of writing the publication is languishing at 257,164 in Amazon’s book chart and has no reader reviews.

Though Apple's been using Intel chips in its iMacs and MacBooks since 2005, word is the company is planning to ditch Intel for ARM to create a more unified structure among all of its devices.

In a late-day news kerfuffle, Bloomberg reports that Apple is considering switching its chips in future MacBooks and iMacs from Intel to ARM. Rumor has it that the company is looking for ways to replace its Intel processors in its Macs with chips based on designs in its iOS devices.

Bloomberg says that the chips used in its iPhone and iPad will some day be powerful enough to run larger machines, like iMacs and MacBooks. And that makes some sense; with tablets and smartphones becoming more or less replacements for computers, Apple may want to unify its chip platform. In five years, according to Bloomberg, if Apple wants a “seamless experience” across all of its devices – including televisions! – it will want all of those disparate devices running the same chip architecture.

Take this information with a grain of salt, since Bloomberg’s source is “people familiar with the company’s research.” We’re a bit skeptical, too. But while we don’t think it will happen overnight, there is a possibility that this could happen within the next five years. We don’t expect Intel to go down without a fight, however. The chipmaker has been furiously trying to break into the smartphone and tablet market, which is now held by rival ARM processors, and has made great strides toward designing powerful chips that suck up less power and don’t require loud fans to stay cool. Apple sold 4.9 million laptops and desktops last quarter. 

What do you think? Will Apple really leave Intel for a unified ARM structure across all its devices, or is this just Apple nerds creating rumors due to sheer boredom between new iPad mini releases and we’re still waiting for new on the iMac’s release?

We originally thought Microsoft was being generous with 32GB storage standard for the Surface RT, but it turns out only 16GB of that is available to users. The rest of the storage is taken up by Windows RT and Microsoft Office.

If you thought a $500 Microsoft Surface RT with 32GB of storage was too good to be true (compared to the iPad’s 16GB for the same price) then we’re here to say you’re right. If that was your dream then you may want to start amassing memory cards because Microsoft had to use half of that 32GB for Windows RT, Microsoft Office, and other software.

Microsoft broke the news in a new post titled, “Surface disk space FAQ”, outlining exactly how much space on the Surface RT is available for apps, music, videos, and photos. According to the FAQ, the 32GB version has 16GB of free space and the 64GB version will have 46GB free. We are hoping this isn’t a universal issue for all Windows RT devices, but keep it in mind next time you read about a Windows RT device with an attractive storage size.

Another part of the FAQ explains that 32GB is actually 29GB when using it in the real world. Silly us for trusting the quoted storage sizes. Here’s the official explanation:

The advertised local disk size is shown using the decimal system, while Windows displays the disk size using the binary system. As a result, 1 GB (in decimal) appears as about 0.93 GB (in binary). The storage capacity is the same, it’s just shown differently depending on the how you measure a GB (decimal or binary).

At least Microsoft was kind enough to feature expandable memory through microSD cards that can hold up to 64GB of extra data. There’s also a standard USB port if you are in need of something in the terabyte range for a massive media collection.

Still, Microsoft routinely boasts that the Surface has double 16GB of storage when only 16GB is available to users. Windows RT has enough uncertainty surrounding it with its basically useless classic desktop and nearly empty app store. It doesn’t need this storage drama added to the mix. The Microsoft engineer quoted last month saying Surface RT users would have 20GB of space available only makes things more uneasy.

With iOS and Android optimized for mobile storage sizes, we kind of expected Windows RT to be relatively svelte in terms of gigabytes. It wouldn’t be surprising if Microsoft addressed the size of Windows RT in a future update. Perhaps it will prune it down as time passes and eventually — fingers crossed — phase out the legacy features and classic desktop altogether.

What do you think of Microsoft’s misstep? Is expandable memory enough to make up for less internal storage?

Chris Olivera has plead guilty to stealing nearly $2 million from his former employer GameStop.

Until last year, Chris Olivera served as GameStop’s vice president of corporate communications and public affairs. Given the sheer number of ads the company pushes on its customers in-store, by mail, on television and via the ‘net, it seems that he was pretty successful in spreading the word about GameStop’s various sales and special offers. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the extent of Olivera’s talents, as a newly uncovered federal indictment reveals that Olivera also has sticky hands. Very, very sticky hands.

According to the document (.pdf), Olivera began siphoning money from GameStop in July of 2009. Instead of just swiping a handful of bills from petty cash though, Olivera’s scheme was like something out of a lazy John Grisham novel. Olivera, the court claims, set up a company called Cloud Communications LLC that while innocuous on paper, didn’t actually exist in the real world. Nor did any of the Cloud Communications employees Olivera named as contacts when he used his VP position to hire the fictional firm as a PR consultant for GameStop. As he was an otherwise solid employee, Olivera’s colleagues saw nothing amiss in his interactions with Cloud, though all the while Olivera was redirecting all money paid to Cloud to his personal accounts.

In total, over the course of roughly two years, Olivera managed to steal nearly $2 million from the retailer before his larcenous efforts were discovered.

Now that the jig is officially up, Olivera has officially plead guilty to one count of mail fraud. That may seem minor, but the government takes the postal system very seriously. The maximum punishment Olivera now faces could include up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Of course, that’s before any civil action is taken against Olivera by GameStop. Given the huge amount of money the company lost to Olivera’s scheme, it only seems reasonable to expect that it would want to recoup some of its cash (or, failing that, exact a pound of flesh to set an example to future would-be thieves). We contacted GameStop and while the company refused to elaborate on its official plans for this situation going forward, it did confirm that Olivera left the company at some point during 2011. Though we pressed the issue, GameStop wouldn’t clarify why Olivera departed, though we have to assume that the discovery of his theft probably had something to do with it.